The unhinged homeless man who allegedly pummeled a woman at a Queens subway station so badly she became blind in one eye is calling for more transit cops — because crime is “out of control.”
During an exclusive jailhouse video interview from Rikers Island, Waheed Foster urged the city to do more to combat subway crime because straphangers are on edge.
“All they got to do is hire more officers to work down there . . . Somebody can lose their mind at any time,” said Foster, 42, wearing an olive-colored jumpsuit.
“It is getting out of control,” he added.
Foster stressed his point by recounting that just this week, a psycho randomly pushed a woman into a moving F train at the Fifth Avenue/53rd Street station in Manhattan, leaving her in critical condition.
“That can happen at any point and given time,” he said.
Foster was charged with attempted murder and felony assault for the vicious attack on Elizabeth Gomes, 33, who had been traveling to her security job at JFK International Airport on Sept. 20, 2022.
Shortly after 5 a.m., Foster was ranting about the devil at the Howard Beach A Train station before he chased the mother of five and threw her into the side of a token booth, Gomes and police said.
Sickening footage of the attack captured Foster pummeling, stomping, and kicking Gomes — continuing the bloody beatdown after driving away a Good Samaritan attempting to intervene.
In the jailhouse interview, Foster repeatedly disputed that he blinded Gomes with his blows, claiming he had only punched and kicked her in the cheek.
He bizarrely claimed he could not have done serious harm to his victim because of the shoes he was wearing.
“The sneakers I had on, they was not heavy,” Foster said, before pointing to his face and adding, “When I kicked her, she never bled or nothing right there.”
He claimed he attacked Gomes because he was “upset” and “flipped out” because he was off his medication at the time, but said he wished he could apologize to her for the pain he had caused.
“I feel bad for her,” he said.
His lengthy rap sheet dates back to the mid-1990s when he was charged at the age of 14 with killing his grandmother during a fight over money, according to law enforcement sources.
Before the Gomes attack, he had been on parole following a 12-year prison sentence on a Queens assault charge.
Weeks before the assault, he was arrested for violating his parole, but was released without bail thanks to Albany’s bail reform laws, records show.
In April, Foster was indicted on murder charges for allegedly fatally strangling his Bronx girlfriend in August 2022, which he also denied.
Gomes, who lost vision in her right eye, could not immediately be reached for comment.
She previously demanded that authorities throw the book at her assailant.
“I believe he should get a long sentence where he shouldn’t even come outside again,” she said. “He should feel how we felt, like the pain and the suffering that we had to go through.”
Major transit crimes are down 5% through October 15, compared to the same time period last year, although felony assaults are up 4% and burglaries have spiked 43%, according to NYPD data.
Additional reporting by Tina Moore.